


Somewhere there is a world

by StripedSunhat



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Worlds, Dreams vs. Reality, Fluff and Angst, If we shadows have offended, Multi, What-If, a russian roulette of trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 20:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17251061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedSunhat/pseuds/StripedSunhat
Summary: She has touched eternity too many times and sometimes it swarms back up on her.There are consequences to such actions.  Eternity does not let go easily.





	Somewhere there is a world

**Author's Note:**

> Credit time! The idea of calling Klaus Barry 'Kay' comes from _faster than a final breath_ by ProfessorEMP, which is absolutely hilarious. Go read it.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE there are several sections that cover... less than nice worlds. Two in particular are significantly touchier than the rest. If you want to tread lighter or even just skip around them, they're the ones that start with 'Tarvek is sent home from Castle Wulfenbach' and 'The Geisterdamen underestimate Tarvek'.

_Somewhere there is a world._

_The Other never attacks Castle Heterodyne. In fact, the Other doesn’t attack anything. The Other doesn’t exist here at all._

_Agatha is born in Mechanicsburg to deafening fanfare. The jägers swarm the streets in a grand hunt and trample seven people. They’re Mechanicsburgers, they bounce. Later one even tries to frame his scar in honor of the event._

_Lucrezia dies only a few months after her daughter is born. A lab accident. It’s tragic but these things happen._

_Klaus had arrived a year before. There’d been nothing to stop or waylay him. His journey back had been long but not hard._ (At least, not in that way.) _He brought with him a son. Little Gil is so instantly taken by baby Agatha that Bill starts in on wedding jokes within a week. Kay and Gil and Agatha spend all their time together, tumbling through the Castle, laughing and roughhousing and startling the topiary._

_“When Agatha is five she breaks through. Her breakthrough triggers Kay’s own breakthrough. At the first sign Klaus hauls Gil back to his parents castle and keeps him there fort he entire duration, not yet willing to be a single father of an eight-year-old Spark. These things do tend to feed on each other. It ends up not mattering because Gil breaks through anyway and Klaus wakes up to a sentient meat pudding and a son who’s decided it’s his pet._

_There is no captive school but the upper echelons will mingle no matter what and Tarvek arrives at Castle Heterodyne’s doorstep instead. All the free-flowing Spark madness pushes him over the edge into a breakthrough. These things do tend to feed on each other after all. He stays until his Madness levels to something more safely deranged. He wants to stay longer. Klaus objects and Bill and Barry are mistrustful but Agatha and Gil have already decided they’re keeping him forever and Kay gets the jäger generals on their side. So it’s Mechanicsburg where Tarvek visits and as much as possible it’s Mechanicsburg where he stays._

_He brings with him his cousin Violetta, whose Agatha’s age, and his sister Anevka, who’s even older than Kay. Anevka pretends she’s not interested in the rest of them but Kay can usually draw her out just a little. Other noble children descend in a rotation, including Kay and Agatha’s own cousin Theo. And the young von Mekkhan is very determined to get a head start on his future hereditary position. Soon enough there is a veritable hoard of small bodies and untested Sparkwork. The town elders gossip about the children and eye the electrified cages in a proudly speculative manner._

_Gil’s ten when he raids his father’s office and finds the knife engraved with patterns he’s never seen. He’s twelve when he finds the notes written in a language he’s never seen. He’s thirteen when he finds the truth._

_“I have a mother,” he whispers to Kay and Agatha and Tarvek, voice never rising high enough to even catch the air. The others react with the proper amount of reverence the statement deserves. Mothers are precious rare things. None of them have one._

_“Who is she?” comes the breathless question. Gil looks into all of their eyes and tells them. He never even thinks about not telling them. He never even thinks about telling anyone else. This is how the world is shaped._

_Now that Gil’s found out about his mother the clear next step is to find her._

_One fourteen-year-old, two thirteen-year-olds, and a barely-ten-year-old should not be attempting to make this journey. Especially when all they have is a tiny stolen dirigible, whatever supplies and tools they can shove inside and a two-foot-tall gremlin that started out its life as a kidney pie._

_Against all forms of odds and largely because of Agatha they survive._

_The increasingly frantic search parties are stopped just shy of ripping Europa off of the tectonic plates it’s anchored onto by the arrival of the royal Skifanderian envoy. The children return home safely with Queen Zantabraxus in tow, who has some key words to say to her husband, and arrive in Mechanicsburg where everyone hadn’t been sure if they dead or not since the note they left was decidedly not helpful. The reunion goes every inch as badly as can be expected._

_They also bring with them Gil’s twin sister Zeetha. She introduces to the roving child hoard the idea of large, very pointy objects. She at least fits into Mechanicsburg just fine._

_Zantabraxus is Queen; she cannot stay. She also will not leave her son behind. Gil belongs to Europa. He also belongs to Skifander. It is decided he will spend two years there, uninterrupted so as to learn his other home. Klaus is definitively not allowed to object. Unfortunately, neither is Gil._

_Kay and Agatha and Tarvek cluster around each other in Gil’s absence. Kay misses his not-quite brother like a pufferfish misses it prehensile spines but it’s nothing compared to Agatha and Tarvek. They’ve been four of them since the very first but even now Kay can see that as close as they all are his baby sister and her boys are one entity. It was a fact that had become increasingly apparent in their travels where it wasn’t the four of them within the outside world but the four of them as the world._

_So he stays behind. There’s no way to pull the same trick twice, not with everyone up to and including the ceiling beams watching them. But Kay is a Heterodyne. He buys them a week and when they’re late stalls for three hours. No one can say Kay does not love his sister or brothers. From then on Agatha and Tarvek are frequently sick or away or forced to quarantine themselves in their labs to keep their automated monster feeder from escaping in suspiciously overlapping timeframes while Klaus-Barry covers as much as he can._

_Gil eventually returns, virtually inseparable from his sister and full of Skifanderian secrets. There’s a bubble around him now that only Agatha and Tarvek are able to penetrate. The four of them are often seen romping or sparing together, joking in a language only half of them are allowed to know._

_Kay tries his best not to be resentful. It’s always been like this: Kay is the heir and Agatha is the prodigy. It’s just now that they’re older that it’s becoming more apparent._ (The world is a gentle one; there is room to examine such issues rather than pushing them aside in favor of more important problems until they’re either forgotten or explode.)

_Anevka starts visiting Mechanicsburg more and Tarvek less. It helps._

_When Gil and Tarvek are nineteen Kay corners them and threatens them with all manner of horrible and gruesome consequences should they ever, ever hurt his baby sister. In this and perhaps this alone blood wins out above everything else._

_Bill declares that Agatha is absolutely forbidden from getting married before she is nineteen. For this reason alone her engagement will last at least two years._

_It’s one day about halfway through that term, the six of them – Kay, Agatha, Tarvek, Anevka, Gil and Zeetha – are sprawled out in the courtyard. Anevka is bemoaning younger siblings and Kay is commiserating with her._

_“And it’s bad enough that they’ll end up married before we do,” she laments. It’s then that Kay suggests marrying him. Tarvek’s look of absolute horror when Anevka accepts is a sight Kay will treasure for years. Gil is absolutely gleeful, which prompts Kay to extend the invitation to Zeetha as well, a suggestion Zeetha immediately agrees to. Gil makes a face Kay hasn’t seen since the time Kidney threw up half an assassin on Gil’s shoes as a present. The sight makes Kay laugh, Anevka and Zeetha quick to join him. The engagement probably won’t last more than the day. Or it just might. But either way in that moment it’s real and worth the world._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Tarvek and Gil are more careful breaking into the records vault. They don’t get caught. That doesn’t stop Klaus from trying to get rid of Tarvek._

_He calls Gil into his private office, lays all manner of crimes at Tarvek’s feet, tries to get Gil to give up any secrets he has that can be used against Tarvek._

_“I don’t believe you,” Gil says._

_Klaus tells Gil of his heritage. He banks on the family Gil never had outweighing the friendship he does. Klaus lays Tarvek’s false crimes back at Gil’s feet. Gil looks at his newly found father and thinks ‘I don’t believe you.’_ (There is another world where Gil does believe him. In that one Gil and Tarvek die by each other’s hands before they’re twenty-two.) _Gil does not tell the Baron anything. Gil does not betray his friend._

_It doesn’t matter._

_While Tarvek is sulking in the tiny, outdated dirigible that’s taking him home he finds a letter wedged in between the seat cushions. It’s not somewhere a spy would leave anything. It’s more the hiding place a young boy might find if sneaking something in at the last minute._

_The first half of the letter is a jumbled mess of apologies and promises he didn’t say anything, made worse by the fact that it keeps randomly switching encryptions. In the middle of the letter is this: ** ~~The Baron~~ Klaus expects me to trust him. He didn’t trust me so I don’t see any reason to trust him. But I do trust you. ~~Klaus~~ The Baron said that I’m his son.** The letter continues, explaining exactly what Klaus had said but it’s this passage that Tarvek gets caught on._

_The Baron’s son. The heir to the Wulfenbach Empire is offering Tarvek his sole trust. Tarvek folds the letter back up and thinks very carefully about his next move._

_When the dirigible returns to Castle Wulfenbach there is a letter tucked away in the main compartment, not anywhere spies or soldiers would discover it but somewhere young hands hoping to find something back would._

_In his letter Tarvek promises Gil he forgives him, reassures him he’s not mad anymore after reading his letter, promises him they’re still friends. He agrees that The Baron doesn’t – hasn’t ever – trusted Gil. Nowhere in the letter does he ever claim it’s not Gil’s fault. The letter ends as such: **No matter what Gil, always know you can trust me. Even when you can’t trust anyone else you can trust me.**_

_Gil takes Tarvek’s words to heart. The letters back and forth continue, cautiously and sporadically at first but never caught. Tarvek gains a very useful spy. Tarvek’s family gains nothing. He sees no reason to trust them._

_Tarvek tells Gil about the existence of a Heterodyne girl. Gil puts certain pieces together in a way the Baron and his men aren’t looking for._

_Agatha is fourteen, home alone and nursing a truly horrendous headache when a well-dressed redheaded stranger shows up at her door._

_“Your foster parents are lying to you,” is the first thing he says to her._

_Tarvek tells her about her heritage. He sabotages her locket and gives it back so her foster parents won’t suspect. He gives her a choice – trust him and be free or trust them and risk staying trapped as what she currently is._

_A week later Tarvek leaves for Paris. A freshly broken-through Agatha leaves with him._

_Gil and Agatha trust each other only because Tarvek promises they can trust each other. It is a delicate starting point, but as it turns out, a good one._

_Over the next few years the three of them take several trips to Mechanicsburg. Klaus’s hold on Mechanicsburg weakens to almost nothing without him realizing it. Mechanicsburgers mobilize in a way only they’re capable of. If the rest of the world knew they’d be screaming in a blind panic. But Agatha is very clear – she is a secret until the time is right. So, deprived of displaying their banners to the world, Mechanicsburg falls back on its second favorite technique – back alley intrigue. The reclaiming and repair of the Castle is given a lot more attention. Spies are given the run around. Tiktoffen in particular is given an impressive mix of lies, misinformation and very misleading truths._

_When Gil is twenty-two, three months before he is set to return to Castle Wulfenbach, three months before he’s set to be officially and publically recognized as Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, he comes clean to the world about being Teufel’s son. It’s a story Klaus was generous enough to plant, one they’ve been carefully tending for years. Half the nobles who first hear the story have the carefully scripted reactions of someone who already knew. Teufel was a monster but his son is an upright man with a good upbringing and most importantly a steadfast loyalty to a noble member of a royal house._

_The three of them go to Mechanicsburg. There are a castle and a title waiting for Agatha._

_Tarvek weds Agatha. The title Storm King is on everyone’s tongue. How can it not be, with how many ears it’s been whispered into?_

_Klaus dies. Natural causes._ (No one will ever say anything different.) _He leaves no heir and instructions to hand the empire to Prince Sturmvouraus. The title Storm King is on everyone’s tongue. It only makes sense for it to translate to a crown._

_Tarvek Sturmvoraus is King. Agatha Heterodyne is his loving Queen. Gilgamesh Teufel is his loyal guard dog. He’s more than that of course, to both of them. But that’s behind closed doors and Gil and Agatha don’t trust the world with Tarvek’s secrets._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Tarvek and Gil are each other’s only real friends in the world. It’s a heavy burden to be the only thing carrying an entire person. It doesn’t feel like heavy to them. It’s so light they don’t even notice it._

_An assassin sneaks aboard Castle Wulfenbach. The defenses are good but not impregnable. Things do sometimes slip through, assassins being one of them. The assassin is after Tarvek, sent by some far-flung branch of his family. Klaus catches on long before he can do anything._

_Klaus can stop this before anything can happen. Klaus steps aside._ (There are other worlds, many of them, where Klaus is presented with the same decision. There are other worlds, fewer but still many of them, where Klaus makes the same choice.)

_The assassin makes his move._

_Except._

_Tarvek is not alone when he does._

_Gil does not step aside._

_When the castle guards arrive they find Tarvek frantically shouting denials at Gil’s body, the assassin lying dead only a few feet away._

_They could try to revive him. But Klaus let this assassin through for a reason. There is no bringing Gil back._

_Tarvek is dragged away from Gil and into the Baron’s office. There Klaus explains very clearly to the boy he blames his son’s death on exactly who Gil was. Who he would have been. It is not a conversation he ever got to have with Gil himself. Tarvek is sent home._

_The empire Klaus built to keep his son safe still stands. Gilgamesh does not. Klaus is left holding the reigns of a beast that does him no good anymore. He could let it go, let it wreak what havoc on Europa it would, as is its wont without his guiding hand. He almost does. But ultimately he is too stubborn to let that happen. He keeps his hold. The sons of other fathers stay safe._

_The purpose of the empire shifts. What Klaus cares about is different than it would have been. He has no heir – the empire will not survive past him. He has no son – its heart doesn’t have to be as secure. If Gil were alive the patrol of jägers wouldn’t be so far away where they find the girl with blond hair and green eyes and fall at her feet._

_The Klaus Agatha meets is not the one she could have. This Klaus had been too cracked to stay as stone; he had to learn to be something softer. She meets him surrounded by just as many jägers as war clanks. She and her parents are offered not told. Agatha Heterodyne is thirteen years old and rather than fighting or controlling Klaus Wulfenbach lays the world at her feet._

_Repairing Castle Heterodyne suddenly becomes of great importance to the empire. Klaus holds Mechanicsburg in trust and when he gives it back he expects it to be in as good a condition as he can make it. A new Storm King tries to rear his ugly head but is dispatched easily. Most of that problem never even reaches Klaus._

_Zeetha arrives on Mechanicsburg’s front steps. She is nineteen years old, looks exactly like Zantabraxus and wants to see her brother. She does not want to stay after learning of his death. She does not want to get to know the father she blames her brother's death on. She does not ever meet the girl who has been gifted her brother’s inheritance. Instead she leaves a knife carved with symbols for strength and prosperity and goes. She does not set foot in Europa again._

_When Tarvek is sent back to his home he immediately begins burning it to the ground. He starts quietly – he is still young and alone – but that doesn’t mean he isn’t effective. Once the rest of his family figures out what he’s doing he doesn’t bother trying to hide anymore. He gets stabbed and poisoned and shot and blown up and he does not stop. Gil is dead because of him. Him and his family. When a Heterodyne girl is found his family crawls out with swords and false crowns and he cuts them down using them._

_Tarvek is determined and he is thorough. The summoning engine is destroyed, the Geisterdamen are destroyed, the slaver wasps are destroyed. The Other is destroyed. Tarvek gains the title of hero, which he doesn’t accept but doesn’t refuse either. Eventually, as heroes who don’t actually want to kill everyone are prone to do, he is invited to meet the Lady Heterodyne._

_When Agatha asks others about Tarvek the answers she receives are deemed insufficient. He is handsome but hard to look at and the world does not swoon at his feet like they did for Bill and Barry. There is something in his eyes or maybe something missing. He lists to the side when he stands as if his body is still trying to carry a weight that’s not there. But Agatha is first and foremost a Spark and when she meets him herself it is not his looks that catch her interest but his mind. It is his gentle smile and the automated fishing pole meant for hats that he’d presented her with when he first met her that was a reminder of a happier time in his childhood and since jägers are so attached to their hats had seemed fitting._

_They decide to get married a week later._

_Klaus watches the man he still blames for his son’s death step into the role that would have been his._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Adam and Lilith realize they are not equipped to evade Klaus. Barry has been gone for two years. Subterfuge was never what they were created for. They are still loyal to their masters – will always be loyal – but they are in over their heads. They can’t evade an entire empire._

_Paris is one of the precious few places in Europa that Klaus can’t touch. England is another but Adam and Lilith do not want Her Undying Majesty anywhere near their child. Agatha has been a pawn for enough goddesses already._

_So Paris it is._

_They make it all of five minutes within the city limits before the three of them are rounded up and dragged into a private meeting with the Master. In all honesty it’s four and a half minutes longer than they expected to make it._

_“Punch. Judy. Why are you here?’_

_This is the question they’ve been preparing for since they first decided upon this plan. It’s Lilith who squares her shoulders and answers “Asylum.”_

_“Why?”_

_“For her.”_

_“And who is she?”_

_Lilith takes a deep breath. “Bill’s daughter.”_

_Sanctuary is easier to ask for than to get. The Master will not have a Heterodyne in his city. When he demands to know why they don’t go to Klaus all they can tell him is that they cannot. When he demands again to know why they cannot tell him. Still they hold on and slowly Voltaire begins to bend. For the first time in years things look hopeful. All the way until they reach the subject of Agatha’s future breakthrough and her locket._

_It could not go more badly, made all the worse by Agatha being in the room as they speak. They have told her about her father; they have not told her about herself._

_In the end, the locket is what seals it. The Master will give them safe harbor in his city in exchange for the locket and the understanding that nothing of the sort will ever hang on Agatha’s neck again._ (Voltaire has a daughter, his favorite, only a few years older. Every time he glances at the little Heterodyne he sees glimpses of her. This is the real reason he softens.)

_Agatha is immediately swept under Colette’s wing. Colette is used to the sprawling mess of her family. A few years is nothing and a friend is far better than the thin strings of her father’s blood and her father’s will that bind her to her siblings._

_Agatha is Colette’s shadow and Seffie is Colette’s dearest friend. It only follows that Agatha and Seffie would become friends in their own right. Seffie is bright and fashionable and sharp and she doesn’t look down on Agatha for being younger or resent her for being smarter. Instead she scoops Agatha up the same way Colette had and in return Agatha clings just as tightly to her as she does Colette._

_Seffie is also however a member of the Valois family and as such not someone Agatha can trust her family’s secrets with._

_The secrets get harder and heavier to carry each day until Agatha can barely stand to look at Seffie without guilt swarming up and trying to drown her. Colette does her best to run interference between the two but all that does is tell Seffie whatever secrets there are they are secret to her only. Seffie is a member of the Valois family. She knows guilt and lies and secrets; she understands the necessity. What she won’t tolerate is losing her friend over them. So, since Agatha clearly can’t handle hers Seffie resolves to find out what they are for Agatha’s own good._

_She does not expect the answer to be a secret Heterodyne._

_Agatha is so relieved not to have to lie any more and so worried she’s going to lose Seffie and so terrified Seffie’s told someone – She bursts into tears. She’s so distraught and overwhelmed and guilty that Seffie goes from angry to cooing at her and reassuring her within minutes._ (There is a world where Seffie still coos and forgives but she’s already told her grandmother. That world ends in blood.)

_After Agatha’s calmed down, Seffie immediately launches into a lecture on the importance of Agatha being more cautious. She’s friends with Gil Holzfäller and Seffie’s cousin Tarvek for the Storm King’s sake. What part of either of them says discrete or trustworthy?_

_Life falls back into its patterns, only this time better._

_The news that Gil is the Baron’s son takes almost no time to get to Paris. Certain parts of Paris anyway. The Master finds out almost immediately. Which of course means Colette finds out almost immediately. Which in turn means Seffie and Agatha find out almost immediately._

_Agatha barges into Colette’s room and flops back onto her bed. “Whyyyy?”_

_“I did try to warn you love.”_

_“I just can’t believe that Tarvek’s the trustworthy one.”_

_Seffie laughs from her place beside Colette. “Um, no.”_

_“Why –”_

_“Storm King conspiracy, remember?”_

_Agatha grabs the nearest pillow and buries her head in it. “That settles it. I am never leaving your room again.”_

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Tarvek is sent home from Castle Wulfenbach._

_Gilgamesh is left alone._

_Gilgamesh grows up in his father’s shadow. He is strong and skilled and painfully proud._ (And broken. He lost his only tether to the world and didn’t know how to stand without it.)

_Agatha is mugged._

_Agatha breaks through._

_Agatha is discovered._

_Gilgamesh is as sharp and hard as his father. He is neither an ally nor confidant. Agatha wakes up not as a witness or a hapless lover but as a highly dangerous and highly interesting Spark. There is far less freedom in that position. A more compelling cage perhaps, but a tighter one too. Lilith and Adam come to rescue her._

_Agatha Heterodyne is found out._

_Gilgamesh proposes to her. It is not put forth as a question but a statement of fact. It is all force and expectation and there is nothing endearing in it to soften it._ (There is nothing endearing in him to soften it.)

 _Agatha Heterodyne marries Baron Gilgamesh Wulfenbach_. (Because he’s not Gil, not really; there is no Gil, not in any way she knows) _. The knife she brings with her to the marriage bed does next to nothing except convince Gilgamesh to actually fall asleep elsewhere._

_The jägers don’t take kindly to the subjugation of their Heterodyne. Two-thirds of the jägers who had joined Klaus in good faith die within two months. It should really be no surprise that it prompts the wild jägers – far more than anyone had realized – to come out of hiding. That fight is harder. They still all die within a year. What is left is an ostensible honor guard who are never actually allowed anywhere near their charge._

_The Wulfenbach Empire is powerful. Its barons even more so. But even they can’t expect such an action to go unanswered. A great army rises against them. The empire has put down rebellions before._

_Except this is not a rebellion. It is an uprising._

_And it is led by the Storm King._

_Agatha does not wait for him to come for her before she makes her move. When the King’s army finally makes it aboard Castle Wulfenbach he finds the Lady Heterodyne waiting for him in a dress the same shade as his hair. It had been white that morning. To his credit he doesn’t say anything of it, instead sheathing his overly ornate sword and asking, “Your husband?”_

_“Our personal quarters. But I doubt he’s there now.” She will not say he’s dead. Not until she’s destroyed every piece of him herself. Not until she has proof he cannot come back._

_He nods sharply, more to himself than to her. Then, after looking around and making certain the two of them are adequately surrounded by onlookers, he bows low and courtly to her. “My Lady Heterodyne. I have come to save you, and indeed, all of Europa, from the monstrous tyranny of the Wulfenbach Empire.” She studies the man in front of her. There is a cold gleam of calculation behind his eyes. If she takes his hand, she will become his pawn, just as she is Gilgamesh’s now._

_But right now she is in the heart of the Wulfenbach Empire, in the middle of Castle Wulfenbach, surrounded by every last one of its men. The Wulfenbach Empire is strong. Its barons even more so._

_She studies the king again. It might not have been him that wore that crown. She’d heard rumors – whispers that there’d been another trying for the throne as well. Maybe he would have been kinder._

_Or maybe he would have been worse._

_“Your Majesty,” she says as she takes his hand and all that comes with it. She does not look back._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Chump actually listens to his wife when she promises both their children will be safe. He stays in Skifander._

_Skifander does not welcome twins. They do not let the princess and prince forget that. Their royal mother protects their lives but there are many things that can happen that technically fall below that threshold._

_Chump is an outsider. That does not help their cause either._

_Gilgamesh is his father’s son. He caries that in the color of his hair and the shape of his chin. It marks him in a way it doesn’t his sister with their mother’s green hair and royal countenance. But what they don’t see is that he is also his mother’s son. He carries that in the set of his teeth, stained with blood. Gilgamesh, son of Zantabraxus grows up fighting. He bleeds and falls and snarls at anything that tries to stop him._ (It pays off.)

_When Gilgamesh and Zeetha are grown, Chump broaches the idea of going to Europa, not to flee this time, but rather to teach. To teach his children the other half of their inheritance. Zantabraxus agrees and it is decided Gilgamesh and Zeetha will spend a year in Europa._

_Chump insists on spending the first three days cooped up in a tiny abandoned house near where they cross over. Gilgamesh and Zeetha silently think their father is being paranoid. Two weeks later when they’re still in the house only just recovering from the horrible fever that swept through the three of them, leaving Chump the only healthy one, Gilgamesh is willing to reconsider that stance._

_Europa is nothing like Chump had described. His stories had hardly been rose colored but neither were they the war-torn hellscape that greets them. The Heterodyne Boys – their would-be uncles – are gone. In their place is Agatha, who’s even younger than Gilgamesh and Zeetha and fighting by the skin of her teeth every day. Agatha is almost terrifyingly competent and in over her head anyway because Europa, Gilgamesh quickly learns, destroys even the brightest of lights. Their father never mentioned that when speaking of his home._

_Gilgamesh hates Europa._

_It is horrible._

_The worst of them without doubt is Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus. He is everything wrong about Europa embodied in one person. The very worst part, the absolute worst, is that Agatha seems to count him as an ally. An untrustworthy one. But still. An ally._

_This. This is why Europa is so horrible. The only people who thrive are those without morals._

_He cannot wait until he can go home._

_But. When it is time to leave Zeetha asks to stay, at least a bit longer to help Agatha. Gilgamesh stays with her. He will not leave his sister alone here._

_Agatha’s good but she cannot keep doing this alone. She needs help. And not just the scraps Gilgamesh and Zeetha can offer on their own. Skifander could provide it. But she needs a stronger relationship than a generation old tie to a man who no longer belongs to her world._

_So he asks Agatha a deceptively simple question._

_He only asks his mother for her approval after. His father is in the room too of course. They are a solid unit. She does not make sweeping decisions without his perspective. This time it’s Zeetha who stays for Gilgamesh. She won’t be able to stay forever, but for now she does and that is more than enough._

_Gilgamesh knows that he and Agatha don’t have what his parents have. He doesn’t know if they ever will._ (They will _) But he looks at Agatha and knows he does not regret his choice._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Chump actually listens to his wife when she promises both their children will be safe. He stays in Skifander._

_She is wrong._

(There are so many worlds where she is not, so many worlds where she is right –)

_Gilgamesh, son of Zantabraxus is strong and skilled and painfully stubborn. But as brave as he is, he is still only seven years old and no match for five fully grown, fully trained warriors. He dies in the main square six years, nine months and thirteen days after Zantabraxus makes her promise._

_Chump goes mad. He lashes out against everyone. He blames the murderers for killing him. He blames the soldier for not saving him. He blames the people for hating him. He blames Zantabraxus for not protecting him. He blames himself for not taking him away when he first wanted to. He even briefly blames Zeetha for not being there with him._

_That one is a step too far. That last one is what shocks him from the worst of his fury. But not all of it. No. Never all of it._

_He calms. Zantabraxus mistakenly believes his rage has been replaced by grief. It has not. Instead his rage is replaced with cold resolve and a plan._

_One month after Gilgamesh is killed Chump kidnaps Zeetha with plans to take her back to Europa. He has already lost his son; he will not lose his daughter too._

_Except Zeetha is not an infant. She knows he is trying to take her away. She is not helpless. She is a young warrior who has been trained to fight from birth. Unlike her brother Zeetha wins her fight. She has rage and grief and an opponent who does not wish her dead. Zeetha goes home. Chump is dragged back behind her._

_Despite the cries of her advisors, Zantabraxus refuses to have him killed. She choses exile instead. She has already lost her son; she will not lose her husband too._

_Chump is exiled from Skifander._

_Zeetha watches him step through the portal with the grim, sinking awareness that she will never see him again. She has already lost her brother; now she is losing her father too. For a second she almost wishes she hadn’t stopped him. Then it is gone and so is he._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_The Geisterdamen underestimate Tarvek. Everyone does really. It’s a very dangerous mistake to make._

_The Other doesn’t – quite – come back, not exactly. Not enough for Agatha to get lost. That would defeat the point. Just enough to be useful. He wouldn’t chose to bring her back if he couldn’t control her after all._

_Agatha is awake and asleep and she doesn’t know where she is and she is keenly, keenly aware of everything she is doing._ (Somewhere there is a world where she isn’t aware of anything. It would be a kinder fate then this one.)

 _Agatha-who-isn’t-Agatha marries young prince Aaronev_ (because he’s not Tarvek, not really; there is no Tarvek, not in the way she knows). _The world begins to fall at the Lady Heterodyne’s feet. In turn, she kneels at her husband’s. It’s all very neat. Very tidy. Bloodless and seamless and far too elegant to be called anything as vulgar as a rebellion. The Wulfenbach’s make themselves very convenient villains in this tale. Tarvek is already looking forward, picturing a crown to go with his queen._

_He makes only one mistake. He underestimates Agatha._

_Agatha Heterodyne is a force of nature and she cannot be contained forever. She doesn’t need long. Just the space of time it takes to pull a trigger._

_Agatha stares at her husband lying at her feet._ (Somewhere there is a world where she laughs. Somewhere there is a world where she cries. Somewhere there is a world where she screams. Somewhere there is a world where she breaks everything in reach and doesn’t stop.) _She sits down on the bed – their bed, her bed, **his** bed – and closes her eyes._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Tarvek loses his family’s game._

_Gil doesn’t find out until years after it happens. He doesn’t believe it when he first hears it. He doesn’t believe it when he travels to Sturmhalten and can’t find him. He only begins to believe it when he’s standing in front of a grave that shouldn’t exist._

_Tarvek is dead. He wouldn’t have been if he had stayed. If Gil hadn’t helped send him away._

_He spends three weeks in Sturmhalten, exploring. Then he comes back bringing with him the entire Wulfenbach army. Gil can’t bring Tarvek back. But he sure as hell can destroy everything that killed him. It’s not enough to stop the Geisterdamen, or the Knights of Jove, but it puts a serious dent in them._

_The Baron has new leads to chase about the Other. And Gil is left trying to figure out how to keep moving._ (Somewhere there is a world where he learns how.)

_When Agatha tries to flee Castle Wulfenbach, the title Heterodyne newly draped upon her, Gil is the one who catches her. He looks at her and he knows she won’t stay trapped aboard the airship. He looks at the world past it and he knows she’ll end up dead. “How can I help?”_

_“What are you offering?”_

_Maybe it’s grief maybe it’s guilt. “Everything.” Either way it’s useful._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Agatha runs away._

_She is tired of being broken and damaged and a burden._ (She isn’t. She isn’t. She **isn’t.** She’ll never believe that.) _She runs to Paris. Her parents will never look for her there and Paris is full of Sparks – surely at least one of them can fix her._ _As soon as she arrives she runs into two such Sparks._

_Literally._

_Gil and Tarvek bicker like feral dogs and both loudly claim she shouldn’t trust the other but they also exist in each other’s space so easily it’s like their Sparks are extensions of each other. They offer to help fix her head before she can even ask._

_It’s Tarvek who broaches the idea of her headaches being linked to her locket. It’s Gil who suggests removing it. It’s Agatha who unclasps it._

_After she’s finished breaking through the first thing she wants to know is how well her Spark fits with theirs._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_The Other wins._

_Lucrezia passes away early and her daughter, Agatha, takes over the throne. She has her mother’s smile and the exact same gleam behind her eyes. The world listens to her just as well as they did her mother. There really is no difference._

_She is a goddess and everyone heeds her every word._

_It is perfect._

(Hell has no room for imperfections.)

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_The Other’s attack on Castle Heterodyne fails. Lucrezia goes missing. The Heterodyne Boys go after the Other, hunt them down. Lucrezia is exposed._

_Lucrezia is killed._

_Her coat is large and her stomach still flat and her body is destroyed after her death._

_No one ever knows of the daughter that will never be._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Tarvek loses his family’s game._

_When Agatha reaches Sturmhalten there is no one there to help her._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_Agatha is not her mother._ (She is so much worse.)

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

_~_

_Somewhere there is a world._

~

~

~

 

Agatha wakes up. The shadows are dark but familiar. Her cheeks are tacky and her pillow is damp and she does not remember crying. She has touched eternity too many times and sometimes it swarms back up on her, all of it blurring together in her head. There are two sets of breathing matching hers and two sets of arms around her. She touches first one warm shoulder then the other as she slides out of bed.

She forgoes her robe in favor of Gil’s greatcoat. Tarvek wore it last and when she breathes in it smells of both of them. She lights a fire in the grate, bypassing the sparky fire-starter clanks and small explosives piled next to it in favor of lighting it by hand. There is something more real about the feel of the sparker in her hand. Something more solid. She needs the feeling of solid right now.

When it catches she sits back on her heels, staring at it. Gil and Tarvek have gotten up to by this point. Gil offers her a hand to the couch while Tarvek fetches the notebook she keeps by the side of the bed. The fire is crackling happily. Now the shadows are all muted golds and browns.

She settles into the cushions, sinking further into the realness of them. If she goes to sleep right now she’ll be pulled back under again but so long as she stays awake for the next day or so she’ll be fine. Gil sits down next to her and Tarvek moves to join them. Usually she would argue that they need their sleep – stalemates almost always go in her favor eventually – but tonight she knows she’s lose. Her boys would stand firm, as they always do when it comes to this. If she is staying awake so are they. She’ll argue over their health and need for sleep tomorrow when their presence doesn’t feel like the only thing keeping her grounded. Not tonight though. Tonight she accepts the comfort of their presence with an easy sigh.

Tarvek begins twisting her hair into an intricate knot while Gil starts softly humming a rotation of truly filthy bar songs that Agatha joins in absentmindedly the tune changing just often enough to keep her from devolving into heterodyning.

Opening her notebook Agatha begins scribbling, jotting down everything she can remember from her visions. The feel of Tarvek’s fingers in her hair and the sound of Gil’s humming in her ears keep her from falling back into them. They keep the words as simple ink on the page rather than rabbit holes. Once she’s written all she can she starts on all questions she can think of. She’s no hope of answering any of them now, but this way she will remember to ask. Most are for herself, some are for her advisors, some are for her family – at least one for Tarvek that will decidedly **not** be asked in Gil’s presence. _(There are other worlds, many of them, where he is presented with the same decision.)_

Eventually her words run dry. She rereads everything she’s just written, going slowly and doubling back every few lines, trying to make certain the words all make sense. There have been times when they haven’t. When all her careful recording has led to is gibberish that she has tipped herself into Madness trying to decipher. So she sorts through the words, pausing when she stumbles into a mire of tangled ideas. Even now it is hard to know what she meant. These are not concepts meant for the mortal world. Soon enough though her pen stops completely. She doesn’t know how many pages she’s written. She doesn’t look backwards to find out. Not tonight.

She shuts the cover with a soft whisper of paper. The action is almost like a signal. She can feel the shift it brings – herself growing less tense, Gil and Tarvek moreso. Or maybe they’ve been this tense the entire time and this is simply the point where they feel they can show it. That is the more likely answer. She can’t get herself to follow the thought any further though. Her head feels like it’s full of fireflies, dim warm spots of light winking in and out as they float past. She isn’t quite settled yet to try to catch them.

Slowly, with each breath, the tension fades out of her boys. She is still here; she is still theirs. The great, wide _(terrible, infinite, intimate, eager, welcoming– )_ universe did not steal her away. Not this time and not any other. It won’t as long as she has a say. And Agatha will always have a say. They will all make sure of it.

Gil and Tarvek begin murmuring gently to each other. Little things, words of Madness and of Greatness put aside. In a few minutes she will join them. Or maybe she’ll just listen, letting the sounds of home anchor her. In a few hours dawn will break, light falling on the three of them where they are, tucked into each other. In a few days she will sleep and her dreams won’t be of other worlds.

Somewhere there is a world. Here though, there is this one. And it is more than enough for Agatha.


End file.
